The Mansion

Saturday, March 26, 2016

Les Milliards d'Arsène Lupin

Arsène Lupin in our midst! the irresponsible burglar whose exploits had been narrated in all the newspapers during the past few months! the mysterious individual with whom Ganimard, our shrewdest detective, had been engaged in an implacable conflict amidst interesting and picturesque surroundings. Arsène Lupin, the eccentric gentleman who operates only in the chateaux and salons, and who, one night, entered the residence of Baron Schormann, but emerged empty-handed, leaving, however, his card on which he had scribbled these words: "Arsène Lupin, gentleman-burglar, will return when the furniture is genuine."

"The Arrest of Arsène Lupin"

Today, something completely different! Not a review, but a little look into the Japanese history of a very French character.

While the presence of Arsène Lupin, the gentleman-thief created by Maurice Leblanc in 1905, is not very remarkable in modern Western popular culture, Lupin still lives on in Japan in a curious way. Is he as well known as someone as Sherlock Holmes? That, I very, very much doubt, but the fact you can still stroll into a bookstore and find translated versions of tales of the gentleman-thief should say something. The question that might pop up in your head is: why? Forgotten is too strong a word, but Lupin is definitely not that big a household name anymore in the West, and while getting his books through the Powers of the Internet isn't that difficult, I doubt many stores in the neighborhood stock his adventures. Is there a secret behind his staying power in Japan?

Some might say that Japanese culture, or more precisely, Japanese mystery fandom, tends to focus more on the Western classics more than we do here. I think that would be a too easy, and a too careless attempt at an explanation, and one that seems to ignore the fact that Leblanc actually did write incredibly entertaining stories. Perhaps the question should be why he isn't still that famous here, rather than the other way around.

The notion of the gentleman-thief did not start with Arsène Lupin, of course. A direct literary forefather is E.W. Hornung's Raffles series, which started in 1898, and we have early examples in folklore like Robin Hood. In Japan too, there had been a tradition of folklore about thieves that were seen as heroes by the masses. There is for example Ishikawa Goemon (1558-1584), an outlaw who stole to give to the poor. His exploits became the subject of many kinds of folklore, including multiple kabuki plays. Another example would be Nezumi Kozou ("The Rat Kid"). Nezumi Kozou was the nickname of Nakamura Jiroukichi (1797-1831), a thief who managed to burgle over 100 samurai estates. His tale turned into folklore, and has been the subject of folk songs and kabuki plays (including one by Kawatake Mokuami, seen by some as one of the greatest kabuki dramatists). These characters are considered gizoku, or "thieves with honor" and are thus early examples of thieves that are considered the heroes of a tale in fiction (even if based on real persons and events).

So it isn't strange that a concept like the gentleman-thief would be accepted in Japan. Interestingly, Raffles wasn't translated to Japanese until the Taishou period (1912-1926), while Lupin arrived in Japan much earlier. Already in 1909, the magazine Sunday featured Pari Tantei - Dorobou no Dorobou ("Paris Detective - Thief of Thieves"), based on the 1906 short story La Perle noire. Translations of various stories by various translators followed, many of them being rewrites of the original plot with new titles. The Lupin-epic 813 was for example published in 1912 with the title Kojou no Himitsu ("The Secret of the Old Castle"), written/translated by Mitsuki Shunei. So even in Lupin's early days, he was already making his name in Japan.(See: Hasebe Fumichika (2007). Oubei Suiri Shousetsu Honyakushi. Futaba Bunko. p159-161)

The character of Arsène Lupin was also noticed by Edogawa Rampo, who is commonly seen as the father of the modern Japanese mystery story. It's easy to see the influence of the thief in Rampo's work. Not only did he have his own detective character, Akechi Kogorou, take on the famous French thief in his 1930-1931 novel Ougon Kamen ("The Golden Mask"): his famous creation Kaijin Nijuu Mensou (the Fiend with Twenty Faces) was also partly inspired by the thief. The Fiend would become the main antagonist in the highly succesful children's mystery series Shounen Tantei Dan (The Boy Detectives Club, started in 1936), so the notion of the flamboyant thief with a fantastic skill for disguises had been implanted in many. And more importantly perhaps, this notion was implanted in children, meaning a new generation would grow up with knowledge of this notion. The Shounen Tantei Dan series is still source of many pop-culture references nowadays,

The biggest influence on Lupin's staying power however is perhaps Minami Youichirou (1893-1980), a novelist and translator who'd be responsible for "The Complete Gentleman-Thief Lupin" series, which was a complete translated release of the complete Arsène Lupin series by publisher Poplar. Minami had been a teacher on an elementary school, but having found succes with writing adventure novels for children, he became a professional novelist. His first translation of the Lupin series was published in 1958, and it would take him over 20 years, until the year he died, to complete the project (though this project also included some non-Leblanc Lupin novels). What should be noted was that Minami did not make faithful translations. The Minami translation is aimed at children, so a lot of the stories were simplified, and plotpoints like adultery/divorce and such were skipped over. Some books were shortened to provide for a more streamlined experience. The result is a slightly more heroic, and perhaps 'cleaner' version of Lupin, but, thanks to Minami's own experience as a novelist of children's adventure novels, this version was also very readable, and as such incredibly well-loved by the readers. I too have read some of his translation, and they were quite fun as easier-to-read, and more focused stories.

Other publishers have also released faithful translations of the Lupin novels, but if you look on Amazon now, you'll notice that they're all out of print. Only the Minami Youichirou translations remain in print, even now, so many years after the series first started and even after 'better' translations were released. It shows how beloved his version of the stories are. And because his books are aimed at children, new generations keep growing up with his versions. Interestingly enough, even generations that have now grown up don't seem to have a particular need for the faithful translations! Also note that the Minami translations are instantly recognizable by their awesome retro covers!

Some people might also want to mention the famous franchise Lupin The Third as a reason as to why Arsène Lupin's still available in Japan. Lupin The Third, first started in 1967, is one of the biggest manga/anime franchises in the history, with multiple comic book series, TV series, even more TV specials and films and everything. Heck, an (EXCELLENT) TV series of it has ended just now in Japan, in 2016! And yes, Lupin The Third is about Lupin III, grandson of Arsène, who's also a genius thief, so that is a link, but I think a lot of people overestimate this link. Lupin The Third borrows very little from his grandfather besides some names and the (very) occassional reference. So I wouldn't equate Lupin the Third's success with Arsène Lupin's reputation in Japan per se, even if it definitely helps to have the same name! Do note that Lupin The Third is way, way, waaaaay better known that his grandfather. There is a different recent manga based on Arsène Lupin by the way, titled Aventurier (2011-now), based on the books.

Anyway, I don't pretend to know exactly why Arsène Lupin still prevails in Japan. Then again: is there anybody who can accurately read the movements of that thief? If Ganimard can't, how can I? What I do know is that I absolutely love the character and I'm happy to see that he's still alive in Japan, in one form or another. Because what would Lupin be without a disguise?

12 comments
:

Thank you for an interesting article. However, I don't know that it really addresses the point of why Lupin is still popular in Japan, but generally available as only a specialty item in the West.

I would note that most of Lupin's detective story contemporaries are likewise specialty items in the West: Dr. Thorndyke, the Thinking Machine, Average Jones, Craig Kennedy, Uncle Abner, Randolph Mason, Inspector Hanaud, the Old Man in the Corner, Max Carrados, etc. are all key figures in the development of the detective story, but almost all of them are specialty items both here and presumably in Japan (at least I never hear any references to any of them). So the question is why is only Lupin still popular only in Japan when the other characters are equally well-written? (The quality level of the magazine fiction at the time was really very high.) I don't know the translation status of any of these other characters; probably most of them were never translated and would never achieve popularity. But I would simply imagine that the Lupin stories were initially popular in Japan because they are often exciting and cleverly plotted.

But that does not explain continued popularity because there are many such stories. Older stories, especially popular fiction, generally get covered up by newer models and forgotten, especially popular stories from other cultures.

The mere presence of translations means nothing. Books do not become popular because they continue in availability; rather, they continue in availability because they are popular.

So the question still remains, why is this old model still hanging around only in Japan more than 100 years after his first appearance? I think there are two reasons: (1) I don't think anyone does the gentleman-thief better than LeBlanc. So they remain simply on their strength as stories. (2) It appears to me that the Japanese tend to be more culturally conservative and hang onto things longer than the West. I think this is why we saw a return of the traditional mystery story to Japan long before the stirrings of it started to become evident again in the West. (It is only in the past year that the British Library Golden Age reprints started to become popular.) This is a good thing; a culture is like a ship and needs ballast as well as sail, as Lord Macaulay reminds us. We have precious little ballast here in the West and we often pay for it. In the West we still have thief characters, but it would not be politically correct to have a light-hearted gentle-man thief, who plays theft as a game. If you have a thief in the West he has to be a monster like Stark's Parker.

Let me put it another way. I don't at all follow Detective Conan, but I know there is a character called the Kaitou Kid who is a gentleman-thief. This is the 21st century, and no one walks around with a top hat, a cape and a monocle any more, but this is just how the Kaitou Kid is dressed. If fact he is dressed pretty much like that Japanese version of Lupin above. The only reason for him to be dressed that way is because the top hat belongs as much to Lupin as the deerstalker belongs to Sherlock Holmes. So Lupin has a cultural niche in Japan. You know a gentleman-thief because he looks like Lupin.

Like I mention at the end of the piece, I don't claim this is /the/ explanation to the Lupin Conundrum: I simply wanted to point out some factors (cultural familiarity with the concept, publication history, 'offspring') that might not come in mind immediately from the POV of a Western fan.

As to 'cultural conservative', I think this notion mostly applies in hindsight to the works that /do/ survive. Because countless of works (from popular culture) have also been lost in Japan. If not for projects like Aozora Bunko (Japanese Project Gutenberg), many pre-war writers for example would've been long forgotten because of unavailability.

Regarding KID: he's not originally from Conan actually. He's from his own slapstick gag-manga. Nobody in the 21st century (well, he's dates the 20th century) dresses in a white top-hat, monocle and cape, but there are no killer robots running around town, no witches as classmates and no highschool detectives dressed like Sherlock Holmes with a hawk as a partner either. KID is obviously based of Lupin. And everybody knows that. But why? That puts us back to the question as why Lupin is still living in Japan. And I'd still say that having characters like Kaijin Nijuu Mensou (based on Lupin, dresses in black top hat and cape), and the Minami Youichirou Lupin stories (features many illustrations, again in the 'traditional' Lupin get-up) helps preserving the image. Especially as these are aimed at children: conciousness of the characters stays alive longer.

Moriarty's costume in that series is indeed white, and time-wise, KID's costume might indeed be inspired by Moriarty's costume (as Magic Kaito started a few years after the anime). On the other hand: Moriarty's costume was obviously based on the stereotypical Lupin costume, only white.